‘How Can We Get Rid of Trump?’ asks one headline. You can’t—except by defeating him in 2020.

Donald Trump
has been in office barely a month, and already Capitol Hill Democrats and liberal commentators are plotting his removal from office. A typical headline asked: “How Can We Get Rid of Trump?”

You can’t. Mr. Trump was fairly elected to a four-year term, which he will serve unless legitimate grounds emerge for impeachment. It’s time to move from 24-hour rage to serious consideration of the president’s policy proposals and, where appropriate, offering alternatives.

Critics could begin by recognizing that Mr. Trump’s agenda is not unlike the one
John F. Kennedy
put forth in 1960. JFK proposed tax cuts “to get America moving again” and a defense buildup to blunt Soviet and Chinese territorial ambitions.

Democrats could then offer constructive ideas of their own for dealing with the nation’s problems. Had
Hillary Clinton
been elected, she would be busy today trying to fix the cost and coverage problems of ObamaCare, as Mr. Trump and the Republicans are. Before the new administration has even introduced its proposal, Democrats are pretending that ObamaCare repeal would be followed by nothing and that Mr. Trump is trying to “make America sick again.”

Likewise on immigration, any country must control its borders. Mr. Trump has taken a pragmatic position that illegal aliens who commit crimes should be deported but suggested that so-called Dreamers, who were children when their parents brought them here illegally, should be treated more generously. He also proposes a short-term hold on immigration from seven countries where terrorists are active, during which new rules may be established for immigration from those countries. Rather than denouncing Mr. Trump as anti-Latino, anti-Muslim or xenophobic, let us await his administration’s longer-term proposals and engage with them in a serious way.

I did not support Mr. Trump’s election. My own Democratic primary vote went to Sen.
Bernie Sanders
—not because of his Brooklyn 1930s agenda but because he is an honest and authentic man who offered an alternative to the big-money, poll-driven politics that had taken over my party.

I resented mainstream media’s unfair tilt toward Mr. Trump in the GOP contest.
CBS’s
chairman, Les Moonves, said a year ago that Mr. Trump’s candidacy “may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS,” because he produced such good ratings.

It apparently never occurred to Trump-promoting media that their disproportionate coverage of his campaign was moving toward the presidency a candidate without experience in public service or much apparent knowledge of past and present public policy. Having helped him to the GOP nomination, the same media now are scandalized because he is doing what he promised.

My own political involvement dates to 1948, when I canvassed door to door for President Truman. I subsequently was active in civil-rights, anti-Vietnam War and antipoverty causes and served in two Democratic administrations. In all that time I have never seen such a concerted effort to discredit and destroy a new administration.

Before 2017 not only the opposition party but media gave the incoming president leeway. Nearly every modern president has had to withdraw one or more cabinet nominations. Nearly all have had cabinet or White House staff shake-ups. Presidents Carter, Clinton and Obama all made embarrassing early stumbles, which were forgiven. The media overlooked “R-rated” personal conduct by Kennedy and Mr. Clinton and properly focused instead on their public duties.

You need not be a Trump supporter to conclude that the present anti-Trump media tirades are something new and disturbing. Free and independent media are vital to our democracy. But freedom must be accompanied by responsibility. President Trump came to office with the complicity of now-critical media, and riding a populist wave that also carried Mr. Sanders far into the Democratic nominating process.

Mr. Trump is demonstrating in office what was apparent from the day he announced his candidacy: He lacks experience, knowledge and governing temperament. But he deserves the same chance to govern that his predecessors were afforded. The manufactured rage in the media and political opposition is taking us to even angrier polarization in the country, and it will last longer than four years.

Mr. Van Dyk was active over 40 years in Democratic national policy and politics. He is author of “Heroes, Hacks and Fools” (University of Washington Press, 2007).